My Lords, my amendment in this group seeks to introduce a new clause after Clause 35. Again, it is on the subject of stop and search and, like the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, its purpose is to probe.
The Committee should be told what the Government’s policy on stop and search is. In April last year the Home Secretary announced that she intended to introduce a comprehensive package of reform of police stop-and-search powers. She had been informed by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary that a quarter of a million stop-and-search operations—or some 27% of street searches—in 2013 had been illegal. In the other place she said:
“I want to make myself absolutely clear: if the numbers do not come down, if stop-and-search does not become more targeted, if those stop-to-arrest ratios do not improve considerably, the Government will return with primary legislation to make those things happen”.
She went on to say:
“nobody wins when stop-and-search is misapplied. It is a waste of police time. It is unfair, especially to young, black men. It is bad for public confidence in the police”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/2014; col. 833.]
The Home Secretary noted that black people were still seven times more likely to be searched on the street than white people, which had been seen as sharply divisive in Britain’s black and minority ethnic communities. She might also have noted that in 2013, white people were twice as likely to have taken drugs in the previous year as black or Asian people.
9.45 pm
There are class differences in the patterns of drugs usage. The 2011 online global drug survey of 15,500 mainly young, white, employed, well-educated middle-class people found that their patterns and habits of drug use were far greater than those of the generality of the population. Two-thirds of them had taken cannabis in the previous year; more than 50% had taken MDMA; 41% had taken cocaine; and 25% had taken ketamine. One in 10 had been stopped and searched in the previous 12 months. Nearly half those from the sample who were found with cannabis and a third of those found with MDMA were released simply with a verbal warning. I fancy that it would have been a very different case with young black males in inner-city areas.
The accusation, false or justified, that the police were routinely targeting black youths as being likely to be in possession of and dealing in controlled drugs was one of the factors that lay behind the Brixton riots in 1981 and was again alleged at the time of 2011 riots in London, Birmingham and Manchester. It appears that the Home Secretary was only, shall we say, equivocally supported by No. 10 in her ambition to reform police stop-and-search powers, but the police have responded and the statistics show that stop and search is now down. However, knife crime is up, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, told us earlier.
Against that background, the legislation introduces a whole new range of circumstances in which stop-and-search powers may be exercised, and it is very confusing. Are the Government trying to reduce the incidence of stop and search or is their policy to make plans such that there will be an increased incidence of it? Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said recently that the use of stop and search is a “reasonable tactic” in the right circumstances, and indeed its use may need to increase. But I note also that Tim Newburn, professor of criminology at the London School of Economics, was quoted in the Times on 23 June as saying that the police gave suspicion of carrying weapons as a reason for stop and search in 12% of cases, but suspicion of being in possession of drugs as their reason for stop and search in 58% of cases. It is a power that is heavily used where there are suspicions that people are in breach of the law on drugs, and it will be the more so as a consequence of this legislation.
I come back again to the practicalities. I would like the Minister to tell us how a police officer or customs officer can have reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has committed or is likely to commit an offence within the terms of this Bill. The officer must reasonably suspect someone of having a psychoactive substance—we know how difficult it is to identify them—either on their person or in their vehicle or premises, and moreover the officer must have reasonable grounds to suspect that the substance is not for their own use, but with an intent to supply, import or export it. If the officer does find an unidentified substance, how is he or she to know whether it is a controlled substance or a psychoactive substance, because different legislation applies according to which it is?
I think it will be helpful to the Committee if the Minister can tell us why the Home Office has apparently done an about-turn on stop and search. Because I am
concerned about the possible further proliferation of the use of this power, my Amendment 89 would require that:
“The Secretary of State shall make a report to Parliament each year on the use of”,
these powers, and to provide,
“statistical and other information which it appears appropriate to the Secretary of State to include as to the numbers of individuals stopped and searched under these powers, their ethnicity and other socio-economic characteristics, the grounds upon which these powers have been used, and the numbers of people subsequently made subject to the various enforcement measures provided for in this Act”.
Does stop and search actually prove to be productive and useful?